FIA wants to exclude BAR from F1 championship

I've been reading a lot about this case on the various F1 sites and in the F1 mags, I know that exclusion was one of the options that has been suggested by the press, but now it's confirmed that the FIA want BAR-Honda to be excluded from the 2005 Championship, with a hefty 1 million fine as well!!

Did anyone actually find said hidden fuel tank? because if they did, then BAR cheated. But I think suspending them for the season may be a little harsh.
Since the grid has to have 20 cars, who would get to run 3 cars if BAR were dropped?

for what I understand, part of the issue is that when requested to drain the car at imola, they said they did, but left the fuel in the secondary "secret" tank, thus showing, according to FIA, bad faith.
I think the fine, redisigning the car and being out of 4 GPs (as many as they raced so far) should be enough.

I believe the rules specify a single rubber bladder- but having a second tank doesn't necessarily break the rules. However, using fuel as ballast is clearly an attempt to circumvent the rules, that much is obvious. This is what the FIA is claiming, I was just curious as to whether the second tank was actually found or just hinted at.

If BAR were suspended for 4 races they might as well be suspended for the whole season since they would be so far behind in the championship it would hardly be worth the effort to run at all.

It was clear from this that De Groot's interpretation of events was different to that of BAR and that the contention was over what the team was asked to do. Asked whether there was an allegation that the team had defied the request, he replied: "I asked for a full drain out and afterwards I found more fuel." He added that "most teams take it as a matter of course that the collector will be drained." BAR clearly interpreted his instruction as being to do what is called a "lifted pump", a procedure by which the front of the car is raised and the fuel in the tank is pumped out and the car weighed.

It looks like BAR may scoot with just a fine though. If they manage to convince the court that the FIA's "established practices" for weighing a car do not equate to binding "rules", they could preserve their points, suffering only a slap on the wrist.

I also found it interesting that the FIA implied that other (all?) teams used the "collectors" as well, but drained them before the cars were weighed. BAR chose to keep theirs full because their car was underweight, and figured that the rules were sufficiently vague that they could be challenged. They claim that the extra fuel is not subject to be drained, since it constitutes an integral part of the car's engine.

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"One must at the very least include in the minimum weight the amount of fuel which is needed to ensure that the cars engine can operate without a technical malfunction," he said. "And you have heard evidence from Mr Willis that this car simply cannot operate without a minimum of six kgs of fuel."

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In essence they are claiming that the extra fuel is not, in fact, to be treated as fuel? Hmmm....

EDIT: OT, but I hear now that Stoddart wants to keep his V10 after everyone switches to V8s. Seems like a typical move.

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The BBC website says that the engine is illegal, as long as it is tuned down so it isn't as fast as the other engines. Seems fair to me - Cosworth are struggling for funds, they get an extra year to develop a V8.

Seems a bit harsh on BAR anyway. I'm sure many teams have done this (Benetton spring to mind) and got away with this. My feeling about this is just that BAR will lose the points but Button will keep them, just as what happenned when Williams and Benetton used dodgy petrol a few years ago.

In essence they are claiming that the extra fuel is not, in fact, to be treated as fuel? Hmmm....

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Yep... their car is underweight, and so they always have that advantage over other teams.

BAR claim that the car requires 6kg of fuel at all times, and only with that 6kg in the car is it over the minimum weight, yet other teams cars when completely drained of fuel including the collector tanks (which one would presume would also need a similar amount of fuel as the BAR to be effective) still comply with the minimum weight regulations.

The BBC website says that the engine is illegal, as long as it is tuned down so it isn't as fast as the other engines. Seems fair to me - Cosworth are struggling for funds, they get an extra year to develop a V8.

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You mean legal, right?

from what I gather it is up to the FIA's dicretion whether to allow it. Cosworth should be fine if BMW buys Sauber as rumored, and Williams switches to Cosworth. But nothing's for certain.

My question: How is this BAR incident worse than Ferrari's testing transgressions? Sure, the teams are supposed to work out testing limits but shouldn't the FIA step in when somebody chooses to ignore the limits?

Fuel is fuel is fuel. The tech regs, at least from what I can remember specify a pretty clear "dry weight" of car and driver at 600 kg. No car would run without fuel in it, obviously, but fuel is not part of the racing weight requirements. The car must weigh at least this much during the entire grand prix. Obviously if you use fuel as weight ballast, your intention is to burn it off because gasoline doesn't make good ballast, being a liquid and all. BAR got caught with their pants down and are going to try and weasel their way out of it. I would hate to see them excluded, but I hate cheaters even more. "Tolerances" and grey areas are one thing, but lying to an FIA official by arguing that you didn't understand what " drain the fuel from the car" means and then arguing that it is an integral part of your engine is just dumb. Air is a vital component to combustion too but I don't see anybody trying to argue the "integral" nature of a turbo charger.

No matter how much they test, the F2005 weighs 600 kg when it lines up on the grid, that's the difference.
Ferrari's testing is not something that is regulated by the FIA, that was simply a good faith gentleman's agreement that to my understanding Ferrari was not initially invited to sign. Good faith and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. Ferrari should have probably played ball on the testing agreement, but it is certainly not a rule of law.

No matter how much they test, the F2005 weighs 600 kg when it lines up on the grid, that's the difference.
Ferrari's testing is not something that is regulated by the FIA, that was simply a good faith gentleman's agreement that to my understanding Ferrari was not initially invited to sign. Good faith and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. Ferrari should have probably played ball on the testing agreement, but it is certainly not a rule of law.

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What you say makes sense, but BAR are in essence arguing that what they are doing is no worse than Ferrari - bad faith, maybe, but no rules broken. They are trying to convince the court that the rules allow the collector with fuel to be considered part of the empty weight of the car.

My opinion (which is remarkably similar to Alonso's ) is that BAR is cheating - and so is Scuderia. But I still can't see tossing them for the season...

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Bernie has weighed in and he feels that BAR are guilty and they should be excluded for the rest of the season. He also says that 18 cars would run so that no team would have to run 3, so much for what I knew about the Concorde Agreement. Link

My opinion (which is remarkably similar to Alonso's ) is that BAR is cheating - and so is Scuderia.

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Just a thought... how can Ferrari be cheating when they were never part of the testing agreement? an agreement that so it would seem has already been broken by several teams in the last couple of weeks?

The so called Testing Agreement was implemented for one reason and one reason only, to disadvantage Ferrari. Nothing more.

from what I gather it is up to the FIA's dicretion whether to allow it. Cosworth should be fine if BMW buys Sauber as rumored, and Williams switches to Cosworth. But nothing's for certain.

My question: How is this BAR incident worse than Ferrari's testing transgressions? Sure, the teams are supposed to work out testing limits but shouldn't the FIA step in when somebody chooses to ignore the limits?

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Ummm...yeah...legal.

The Ferrari testing transgressions are technically not testing transgressions at all. The limit is self-imposed, but because the FIA and Bernie need a 100% agreeance on the issue (ie all the teams have to vote for this issue), Ferrari have basically used their veto to prevent this going through, claiming that they need this testing because of the lack of tyre testing data Bridgestone left. This makes you realise how important that one tyre supplier for the entire field is...

11 kilos is a lot more than a "collector" tank would need to hold to prime the fuel system, at least in my understanding, that is a fuel second's worth of fuel at a pit stop. Like you said iGav, dirty cheats. If Ferrari had done this, the other teams would have been asking to exclude them from last year's championship as well as this one.

On another note, I read on grandprix.com that BAR Honda ran a record test distance and set fastest lap at Mugello last week with their 2006 spec V8!!! They should just put that sucker in when they come back.

11 kilos is a lot more than a "collector" tank would need to hold to prime the fuel system, at least in my understanding, that is a fuel second's worth of fuel at a pit stop. Like you said iGav, dirty cheats. If Ferrari had done this, the other teams would have been asking to exclude them from last year's championship as well as this one.

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Heads will roll at BAR Honda after this one.

They should never have let Dave Richards go.

anonymous161 said:

On another note, I read on grandprix.com that BAR Honda ran a record test distance and set fastest lap at Mugello last week with their 2006 spec V8!!! They should just put that sucker in when they come back.

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I read that the V8 was 4 seconds off the lap record, that said, this is BAR we're talking about so they might have found a way to conceal a couple of hidden cylinders in the engine. heheh

BAR have stated they weren't trying to set the best time, so I suspect that on a full bore run, they'll probably be 2 to 2.5 seconds off the pace of the current V10's.

To be honest I wouldn't be at all surprised if by the end of '06 start of '07 season the V8's aren't already matching the current V10 times.

But if they were doing this last year, the implication is that Richards may have been in on the plot. Of ,course, his quick departure may have been the result of an argument over whether to do this....

iGav said:

I read that the V8 was 4 seconds off the lap record, that said, this is BAR we're talking about so they might have found a way to conceal a couple of hidden cylinders in the engine. heheh

BAR have stated they weren't trying to set the best time, so I suspect that on a full bore run, they'll probably be 2 to 2.5 seconds off the pace of the current V10's.

To be honest I wouldn't be at all surprised if by the end of '06 start of '07 season the V8's aren't already matching the current V10 times.

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The lighter weight of the engine is probably a factor for starters.

I really can't imagine what would have happened if this went down with Ferrari instead of BAR. Pandemonium.

All these changes do is make everyone spend more money. At some point the FIA needs to realize that they can't slow the cars down by regulation.
A control tire is a necessity, but only to even the playing field, not to actually slow the cars down. How about 1 tire compound for crying out loud? How is the fan supposed to know whether they are running a soft, soft-medium, medium, medium-hard, or hard tire?
They could always switch the cars to methanol or some bio derivative with a lower energy to weight ratio- that would be fun and it would have an environmental angle. I think the IRL is doing that next year.

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